A blog following the journey of our premature twins, Joe and Harry who were born on 28/01/10 at only 23 weeks gestation.

Monday, 12 April 2010

Goodbye Mr Incubator

At last night's weigh-in Harry topped the 1.5kg milestone which means he is big enough to be in an open cot. This afternoon he made the big move, and he looks so tiny and exposed in it. I was really excited until I saw him in it and now I wish he was back all snuggled up in his incubator away from all the noise of NICU. Oh well.

More good news is that Harry will probably only be in intensive care for another few days as he is managing 6 hours off his cpap in a row now, and only two hours back on it. Once he manages 24 hours off, he will be moved into Special Care which is much quieter and each room only has four babies in it. His next lesson will be learning to feed from a bottle and once he has that mastered he will be home!! I can't wait.

Harry now comes out for cuddles every day and he loves it. Today was our record so far and he was out for two hours snuggling into me. He was so tolerant of me picking bits of dry skin out of his hair, bless him. I cannot wait to be able to bath him, he needs a proper wash now after all this time.

Joe is also doing okay. He was changed from Bubble cpap back to the conventional sort today and is doing fantastically well. I am so glad they changed him back as the prongs that go up his nose were making it bleed and sore and he cried every time he moved his head as the prongs would become dislodged and hurt him. The doctor expected him to need more oxygen as the pressure going into his lungs is now lower, but he has surprised us all and has been on around 26% oxygen all day. His infection levels are slightly raised but this often happens after vaccinations and he appears well so for now he is avoiding antibiotics and they are monitoring him. Yesterday he had another blood transfusion so he is nice and pink now. I have lost count but each baby must be approaching a dozen transfusions each by now.

Joe doesn't come out for cuddles properly yet as it was so uncomfortable for him while on the Bubble cpap. I'll let him settle down for a day or two and hopefully he can start coming out too.